Telemedicine in pediatric neurology
The stress that the coronavirus pandemic has produced on the health services and the disruption it has caused in the care of other pathologies and their follow-up in outpatient visits have led us to promote and incorporate telemedicine in our routine medical practice. Telemedicine refers to remote or non-face-to-face medical attention, a new method of administering medical care by accredited professionals, which optimises resources and increases their scope. One drawback for child teleneurology is that our diagnoses require direct observation of the child and carrying out an examination as though playing a game. Mainly in the youngest stages, a new patient evaluated by telemedicine can be more difficult to diagnose and manage, and therefore some neuropaediatricians have chosen to carry out only follow-up visits, medication management and outcome reviews. Telemedicine, however, also has many benefits, such as the possibility of giving rapid advice, coordination among professionals and reaching the patient where and when it is difficult for classical medicine to do so. The aim of this article is to review the possible indications of telemedicine in child neurology, starting out from the fact that we should never delay the diagnosis of something that can be treated, both at the present time and in an eventual situation of resurgence of the pandemic. The advance of telemedicine will depend on the implementation of technology, on solving legal and security/privacy issues, on its clinical outcomes and on the extent to which patients demand and accept these virtual visits.